I recently received an email from Jumpstart about the wonderful literacy event above. See what Kisha has to say below and make sure to open a book with your children and the children of others on October 8th (as well as the rest of the year as well)!

To Reading!

Anna

Hey there,

Just from reading your site, I can tell you know the importance of developing
solid reading skills and improving reading comprehension in classrooms and
schools.

Please join Jumpstart’s Read For The Record on October 8th, 2009 and
celebrate the joy of reading with children. I’d truly appreciate you sharing
this message with your readers, by posting this PSA from Weeds’ star
Mary-Louise Parker on your website.

It’s about 100 degrees in Dubai, which means that summer is right around the corner! As you plan for June, July and August, take a look at these literacy and technology tips and resources from around the web!

For the young ones—As always Reading Rockets has a fabulous list of summer learning ideas and activities. For example:

Or, if you are looking for ways to combine summer movie time with educational and active follow-ups Kids Off the Couch is a must-click!

For tweens—The best way to encourage young teens to read is to provide them with books that peak their interest. Take a look at AdLit’s themed booklist for books that hit the spot!

For young adults—Since Facebook and YouTube are most certainly going to factor into your teen’s summer plans, why not encourage him/her to write and direct a short film to post on his/her social networks? Short Film Central is a nice resource for budding directors and/or young adults that are interested in global film developments.

For adults—Summer is a great time to brush up on your technology skills and to build your digital education portfolio. Take a look at Curriki’s latest blog post for links to free professional development opportunities and resources.

The summer is a great time to catch up on books, sleep and the beach. That said, why not pick up a little extra cash this June, July and August while helping educators around the world to boot?!

This summer Curriki is sponsoring its annual Summer of Content initiative:

Paid Summer Lesson Writing Opportunity

Do you have an instructional unit or course you’re proud of that you’d like to publish and get paid for?

Interested in earning money this summer to develop a new unit that will be shared with a global audience?

For our Summer of Content initiative, Curriki is soliciting elementary and middle school content in ELA, math, science, and social studies. Apply by April 15th, 2009. For more details, click here.

About Curriki

Curriki is a social entrepreneurship organization that supports the development and free distribution of open source educational materials to improve education worldwide. The online community gives teachers, students and parents universal access to a wealth of peer-reviewed primary and secondary curricula, and powerful online collaboration tools. Curriki is building a unique web site that offers complete, open courses of instruction and assessment. Founded by Sun Microsystems in 2004, the organization has operated as an independent nonprofit since 2006.

Curriki originated from the idea that technology can play a crucial role in breaking down the barriers of the Education Divide – the gap between those who have access to high-quality education and those who do not. The initial focus is on primary and secondary curricula in the areas of literacy, mathematics, science, technology, language arts, and foreign languages. The site has already been translated into Spanish, French, German, Hindi and Indonesian Bahasa. Moving forward Curriki aims to become a vital resource of Arabic language reading and curricula materials as well. To learn more about Curriki please visit the site and watch this video.

Hope to see your ELA lessons on Curriki! Regardless, please visit the site to find thousands of free lessons and learning objects. You won’t be disappointed!

Help your students understand the stories they read at a whole new level with Google Lit Trips!The site states, “Using Google Earth, students discover where in the world the greatest road trip stories of all time took place… and so much more!”

Imagine teaching Make Way for Ducklings with a tool that enables your students to visually follow the journey of Mr. and Mrs. Mallard as they look for a safe home for their family. Using Google Earth, students can track the Mallard family as the travel from the Public Garden to Beacon Hill to the State House and more! When students click on each location on the Make Way for Ducklings Google Earth file, they can see real pictures and learn factual background information about every place in the story!

This is an incredible tool for helping students visualize and learn about the places they encounter in stories! To get started on your journey with Mr. and Mrs. Mallard and other characters from famous children’s novels:

Aside from developing technology tools for classrooms, universities and other professional education environments, I sometimes meet with parents and teachers to share tips and technology resources that are helpful for fostering child literacy development.

Tomorrow I have the pleasure of working with the parents of Dubai’s very own Knightsbridge Nursery, where I will:

Share research on the importance of reading with children during their nursery years

Discuss practical tips for developing reading skills and positive reading experiences with young children

Present resources on the Internet that parents and nursery teachers can use with young children to develop literacy skills and a love of books

I suspect many other parents are interested in these topics, so I’ve decided to post my presentation handout:

Recently I reread the 2007 McKinsey report, How the World’s Best Performing School Systems Come out on Top. Between March 2006 and May 2007, a team of McKinsey researchers and consultants did an intense review and analysis of multi-country PISA results and education best-practices literature. In addition, they conducted 100+ interviews with experts, policymakers and practitioners around the world in order to benchmark 2 dozen school systems throughout the Middle East, North America, Asia and Europe. The goal of the research was, “to understand why the world’s top performing school systems perform so much better than most others and why some educational reforms succeed so spectacularly when most others fail” (p. 11).

The report points out that the best school systems:

Get the right people to become teachers

Develop them into effective instructors

Ensure the system is able to deliver the best possible instruction for each child

In case you’re curious, school systems that they consider to fall into this category include at the top: Alberta, Australia, Belgium, Finland, Hong Kong, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Ontario, Singapore and South Korea.

Reading this made me wonder… What goes on behind the doors of classrooms in Alberta and Finland that is so spectacular? How do these teachers learn their trade? How do they continue learning and improving their art?

Luckily I recently discovered The Global Education Collaborative–an excellent social network that connects teachers and students interested in global education around the world. Think of the possibilities! How about connecting with a classroom in Jamaica to study the water cycle and literacy? Or, why not have your students do a joint wiki history project with students at an international school in Spain!

The world is our classroom! To learning, collaboration, technology literacy and more!